World is now a "far more hostile place to live freely as a queer person"
Mixing wit and tenderness
Winner of The List Festival’s Best LGBTQIA+ Award at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, KINDER now heads to the Brighton Fringe this May.
Mixing wit and tenderness, the show from Ryan Stewart riotously explores childhood, gender ideology and the global rise of reactionary politics, revealing how stories and language can be misinterpreted and weaponised.
The newly imagined version of Ryan’s smash-hit debut finds poetry in panic and comedy in chaos when a library reading hour completely derails, he says.
Chaos ensues when “barely digestible and wholly intolerable” drag-clown Goody Prostate learns the “reading” they’ve been booked for is actually a children’s story-time hour.
Forced to improvise a new act for an unimpressed audience of unruly children and bewildered parents, Goody spirals into a chaotic interrogation of nostalgia and the truth of growing up.
In the piece, Ryan blends monologue, fierce lip-syncing and wild costume changes. The show is as silly as it is serious, using drag as both a disguise and a magnifying glass to question memory, storytelling and the experience of coming of age, he says
Writer and performer Ryan explains: “We’re incredibly excited to finally be touring our newly reimagined production of KINDER, following an incredible successful award-winning Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2025. Since first premiering this show in 2024, the world has become a far more hostile place to navigate and live freely as a queer person, and we are seeing history beginning to repeat itself through the fascistic leanings of what used to be proudly democratic governments.
“This is a work that is centred on forgotten stories, memory, and childhood, and it invites us all to imagine a queer futurity for generations to come that is centred on community, rather than a rugged individualism that has fostered division for so long.”
As he says, KINDER is rooted in his own experiences growing up as a queer person with undiagnosed neurodivergence, finding refuge in books, stories and imagined worlds.
“Inspired by ongoing debates around drag storytimes, the production examines how language, stories and the very act of reading can be misinterpreted and weaponised in today’s political climate.
“Shifting between drag, clowning and cabaret, KINDER turns a chaotic children’s storytime hour into a riotous yet timely theatrical meltdown.”
KINDER visits the Brighton Fringe for dates at The Lantern Theatre, 77 St James's Street, Brighton, BN2 1PA. Performances are on May 2 and 4 at 5pm and May 5-7 at 9pm. Prices from £13 on https://lanterntheatrebrighton.co.uk/ or 0333 666 4466
16+, contains occasional strong coarse language, mild sexual references and references to homophobia/queerphobia
Also Wilde Stages, Dublin Queer Theatre Festival: The New Theatre, DO2 XH96 (May 11-16).